The News Literacy Project, with Brittney Smith

In this episode, we are joined by Brittney Smith, Senior Manager of Education Partnerships (East) at News Literacy Project. Brittney talks about the importance of teaching news literacy in our K–12 schools, and she describes the many free resources available for educators from the News Literacy Project.

Brittney says, “Democracy needs a well-informed public, so we strive to improve Americans’ ability to discern the source and accuracy of information that they encounter.” She adds, “We really have to teach people news literacy skills so that they can discern quality content from quality news sources, enabling them to be well-informed voters and to help our democracy run smoothly.” Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

#304 — The News Literacy Project, with Brittney Smith

28 min
AVID Open Access

Brittney Smith  0:00  

We are drowning in disinformation. Our students are growing up in an infodemic where, if you're not familiar with that term, it means that there is so much information floating around that it's overwhelming and it's really hard to evaluate fact from fiction. We know that democracy needs a well-informed public, so we strive to improve Americans' ability to discern the source and accuracy of information that they encounter.

Winston Benjamin  0:31  

The topic for today's podcast is the News Literacy Project, with Brittney Smith. Unpacking Education is brought to you by avid org. AVID believes people learn through collaboration and community. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org

Rena Clark  0:50  

Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I'm Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann  1:02  

I'm Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin  1:03  

And I'm Winston Benjamin. We are educators.

Paul Beckermann  1:07  

And we're here to share insights and actionable strategies. 

Transition Music  1:11  

Education is our passport to the future.

Winston Benjamin  1:16  

Our quote for today is from Pamela Brunskill. In her article for Britannica, she writes, "News literacy teaches people how to think critically about timely issues and sources of information, not what to think. It helps foster skepticism while avoiding cynical distrust of all news and information." What are y'all thinking about that? Paul? Rena?

Rena Clark  1:45  

I love the focus on how to think rather than what to think. So, how are we empowering our students, even ourselves, to become really thoughtful consumers of information? How are we checking to see what we believe is valid and not. It is a true skill that I think many citizens still need to develop, even something I'm still working on all the time with all the different types of different news and media that are coming at us at all times. 

Paul Beckermann  2:16  

I love that you said empower, Rena, because we really can empower students if we give them the skills to be able to do this. And I feel like media and news literacy is really one of the most important skills that we can teach our students right now. It's, it's almost an essential life skill in my mind. You know, with so much misinformation, disinformation circling, circulating out there, our students have to learn how to tell the difference between what's what's true and what's not true, and kind of cut through that, and get to the real information and become what I used to say as a media specialist, savvy information consumers, but also responsible information producers. Kind of both ends of it.

Winston Benjamin  2:57  

Oh, I like that consumer and producer point, because, again, we are all writing and/or consuming, taking in information. Again, we always like to welcome an expert in our conversation, and we're excited to have Brittney Smith to our conversation today. Brittany is the Senior Manager of Education Partnership at News Literacy Project. We welcome Brittney. Welcome, Brittney.

Brittney Smith  3:21  

Thank you. It's great to be here with you all today.

Winston Benjamin  3:24  

So one of the things that we always try to do is help ground our listeners into our guests. And could you please introduce yourself and give us a little bit about your background to help our listeners understand your context and your expertise?

Brittney Smith  3:39  

Absolutely, I've been with the News Literacy Project coming up on two years. They stole me right out of my classroom. I know, right. I was teaching life science at a high school in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I was the department chair and joined NLP. I think at that time, we were doing lots of work around misinformation in STEM. In fact, we released a lesson trio around that time, so I got to focus on that right when I came to NLP. At the News Literacy Project, as you mentioned, I'm the Senior Manager of Education Partnerships East, and what that means is that I focus on building partnerships with districts and serving our current partners by providing onboarding and implementation support. I also have the privilege of meeting many of our educator users at events, because I'm on the team that goes to conferences and does sessions at learning events. Most recently, I was in Syracuse with my colleague Dan, doing a day-long session for. librarians about social media and misinformation. So that's me, in a nutshell. I'm also a mom of five and a doctoral student, and a wife to my wonderful husband. Yeah, so that's me. 

Paul Beckermann  5:15  

You got a busy, busy world going on there.

Brittney Smith  5:18  

I do. I do. I'm very busy. 

Paul Beckermann  5:22  

Thanks for the background of you personally, because I think it does really help us get some context for where you're coming from. And we appreciate that. Can you give us some context around the News Literacy Project itself? What is it? What are the goals? What should people know?

Brittney Smith  5:36  

Absolutely. So the first thing to know is that we are a national nonpartisan education nonprofit, and that's kind of a mouthful, but it really is an important thing to share with educators. Our nonpartisanship allows us to really focus on the practice of news literacy, and what we are doing is working to build a movement that's advancing that practice. So kind of to put it in a nutshell, we teach people how to tell fact from fiction in the news and other information that they consume. At present, more than 450,000 students and 60,000 educators across all 50 states have been impacted by our resources. So we are really making some noise in the news and media literacy space. In terms of our goals, we know that democracy needs a well-informed public, so we strive to improve Americans' ability to discern the source and accuracy of information that they encounter. I would say our ultimate goal is for everyone to be news literate. And you know, I heard Rena say this, but empowered to play an equal and active role in the civic life of our amazing nation. And since we know education is really the key to this, at NLP, we really hope to see widespread graduation requirements for news literacy instruction at some point before high school.

Rena Clark  7:13  

So we alluded to this a little bit with the quote, and you kind of were starting to take us there a little bit. Can we dig in just a little bit deeper around we kind of know what the News Literacy Project is, but a little bit more around why news literacy is so important with students of all ages?

Brittney Smith  7:33  

Yes. So even if students are not old enough to vote, we really have to prepare them for life after graduation. Right? Like the ultimate goal of education is always to create students who are prepared to leave us at the end of the day. And so, you know, at NLP, we recognize that facts and truths are really essential to a democracy that functions as it should, right? In order to be engaged with it, we have to be able to evaluate all the information floating around about candidates and issues that matter to us in our communities. And so facts and truths should really guide every decision that we make, and we also are aware that civic life is in jeopardy because of, as you mentioned before, we are drowning in disinformation. Our students are growing up in an infodemic where, if you're not familiar with that term, it means that there is so much information floating around that it's overwhelming, and it's really hard to evaluate fact from fiction because you're being bombarded by information. And so even though our students, they've grown up with the internet and social media, that doesn't mean that they know how to use it appropriately, either. The other thing to understand is that right now, we're living in such a polarized, polarizing time that Americans can't agree on much. There's a lot of really lively conversation happening, and so we really have to teach people news literacy skills so that they can discern quality content from credible news sources, enabling them to be well-informed voters, and enabling them to help our democracy run smoothly.

Winston Benjamin  9:34  

So one of the things that I appreciate is the fact that you're saying that kids are growing up in the world where they do have access to the internet. They know what it is, they know how to access it, but they don't, maybe do not know how to use it effectively, to its full capacity. The next question that I have is, I know that you just explained the why literacy is important, especially with the new development of artificial intelligence, how has that impacted news literacy?

Brittney Smith  10:05  

So I would say that it really has increased what we call the information pollution in the information landscape. It's much easier to create and spread mis- and disinformation because of the way that news literacy works. It's just easier to create and spread that mis- and disinformation that we're finding. The other thing is that there are ways to create bots with AI and so you can really, really, really ramp up that spread of misinformation, especially on Twitter, we're seeing that and TikTok.

Paul Beckermann  10:48  

Let's dig into that misinformation and disinformation a little bit more, because it feels like, yeah, we know it's a problem, but what do we do about it? So what would you tell a teacher who's thinking about, I want to empower my students with the skills to distinguish fact from fiction. What can they do?

Brittney Smith  11:05  

Well, the first thing I would say is make sure that you know what news literacy is because, as adults, it's really important, and especially as educators, that we really know the content that we're teaching well, and we're using that in our daily lives. So that would be the first thing. The second thing is, and you can find all of these tips, we have a really great infographic called How to Teach News Literacy in Polarizing Times, and so I'm just going to pull out some of those points. But first of all, you know, when you're presenting a news report to your students, or a piece of content that you'd like them to discuss, approach them like other texts. Don't frame it as you know this might turn into an argument. Treat it just like you would treat any other piece of literature, as a rich opportunity for discussion and analysis, and that will really set your student up for doing that in their personal lives, you know, and thinking critically and looking closely and evaluating pieces of information. The other thing I would say is to really root your instruction in the standards of quality journalism, because instead of talking about who is wrong or right in terms of their views of controversial issues, that, you know, teaches students to look for things like fairness and accuracy and transparency when selecting a place to get their news and information. I'd also say, and you all said this in the opening quote, is that, above all, keep your eye on the goal, which should be to teach your students how to think critically about news and other information. You're not building little robots and making them all think the same thing, right? We are empowering students and trying to get them to actually use these skills in their daily lives.

Such valuable skills, which are really important in this coming year, as it is an election year. We will have some students that are, you know, over 18, but also just preparing them, as you said, for life outside of school. So, I'm just curious, how do you think news literacy is going to actually impact the upcoming elections, and then, what can we do to make sure people have accurate information, especially our students? 

Oh, absolutely. This is something that we are spending a lot of time thinking about at NLP. We do lots of work around the election every year, but especially in a presidential election year. So in terms of what we expect to see in this election season, we are expecting to see lots of themes that talk about corruption and voter fraud, misinformation about immigration, and how different politicians might feel about that. We're also starting to see lots of things attacking the mental acuity of President Biden because he's older, and so those are things that that we're starting to see already. In terms of tactics like how are people getting this information out there? Right now, the things that we are predicting we'll see is a rise in misinformation presented in false context. So that would mean you take the piece of information out of its original context and you put it in a different context and this is really effective because our brains are wired to expect that when we see a piece of media, the picture or video that's included in the post is going to be directly related to the blurb or the text that's near it. And so we don't always stop to critically evaluate that. Well, we're also seeing lots of doctored photos. Of course, AI makes that really easy to do, and then AI-generated images and videos, but also voice cloning, which we are starting to see. So those are kind of the things that we are thinking we'll see in the upcoming election. And I would say that really the best way to teach your students how to find the accurate information is to use some of these pieces of misinformation as teaching tools. At NLP, we have something called RumorGuard, where we source viral rumors from across the internet and we help debunk them according to five factors. So the five factors that we use when evaluating information in RumorGuard are context, authenticity, reasoning, evidence, and source. So when we find a viral rumor, we we don't always use all of the five factors. Sometimes they don't apply, but these are the factors that we use to help us decide whether or not we should trust a piece of information.

Winston Benjamin  16:20  

I really appreciate that you provided specific examples through your work. Also, interestingly RumorGuard, like I like the way that sounds, but one of the things that I've noticed on your website or your research that you provide is this idea of Checkology. Could you just give a little bit of description of what is Checkology and how might teachers take advantage of this resource?

Brittney Smith  16:42  

Absolutely. So, Checkology is our most comprehensive resource. It is a browser based virtual classroom. Educators can create a classroom and then pull from any of our numerous resources to create a course of study. Those resources will either be lessons, missions, or challenges, and all of those pieces of Checkology kind of work together to build news literacy skills in students. In terms of our lessons, which are where the bulk of the learning takes place, they're multimodal learning experiences that are led by subject matter experts who can demonstrate how news literacy applies to their career or discipline. So they're not all journalists. What I love is the diversity that you see. There are doctors and scientists, and we have someone from the CIA who did a challenge with us. We have a lesson about editorial cartooning. So it really is looking at how news literacy affects different subject areas and disciplines, but also teaching students the skills that they need to be news literate. And checkology is totally free because we are very committed to ensuring that all students and their teachers can access Checkology, regardless of their district's ability to pay. So this resource is available to anyone, and so all you have to do is go to GetCheckology.org and you can sign up for a free account. I noticed in some of your other episodes recently, you talked about how teachers should be very careful when implementing technology, because they want to make sure that student privacy is protected, and so I want to ensure that I mentioned that student privacy is very high priority to us, and so we collect minimal student data, and it is wiped from our platform every single year in July, when our platform goes down for maintenance. But if there are educators out there who have concerns about student privacy, I am happy to provide my contact info so that they can reach out for support.

Paul Beckermann  19:09  

That's awesome. There's some other resources on your website too, and I believe they're also free. You have a Resource Library and an educator newsletter. Can you talk a little bit more about those, what they are, and how somebody might access and use those?

Brittney Smith  19:23  

Sure. So the Resource Library is a place where educators can find, really, all of our resources. Everything that we have to offer, you are right, they are all free. We don't charge for anything that we do at NLP. We are completely grant-funded and supported by donors. So you'll find infographics. We do have one called Six Things to Know about AI, which is a really great infographic. We've got unit plans. We have something called News Goggles, which are classroom activities where my colleague, Hannah, talks with people in journalism to kind of, I really think that, above all, it humanizes journalism for students and gives it a face. The other thing that you will find our links to RumorGuard, viewing guides, news literacy quizzes. I mean, just so many resources that are all free for educators. And then our newsletters. We're very proud of our newsletters. The newsletter for educators is called The Sift, and it's created in-house by a team of experts, one of them being someone who worked for Snopes. We've also got some former journalists who work on that team, so they're really high quality resources. But it really is, we call it an Educator's Guide to News Literacy. And so it's going to be your weekly guide to all things news literacy, with links that you can read and discuss with your students. And we always include a bonus activity that is implementation ready, with little to no prep.

Rena Clark  21:18  

Sounds like you have a lot. I'm just curious, is there anything else that our listeners should know about the News Literacy Project? Sounds like you've kind of touched base on all the resources. Is there anything else that they need to know?

Brittney Smith  21:32  

Well, we have one more resource that I didn't mention that I think many educators will find intriguing. It is called Newsroom to Classroom. It can actually be found on Checkology, and it is an opportunity to invite one of our nearly 200 vetted journalists into your classroom, either virtually or in person, to support your instruction. We've had educators use this and develop kind of a long-standing relationship with journalists. So, you know, kind of along the same vein as when I talked about humanizing journalism, just giving students the opportunity to ask journalists questions, because it's very rare, especially in communities of color that are often really, really heavily impacted by misinformation. It's a wonderful opportunity to engage with journalists to really drive up that trust in news. And also, it gives students an opportunity—you mentioned this earlier—to think about how they can not only consume information, but how they can, you know, help create pieces of information that are high quality and help shape the information landscape.

Rena Clark  22:56  

So sounds like so many resources and tools, which actually puts us into our next section. 

Transition Music  23:01  

Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? So, what's in the toolkit. Check it out. 

Rena Clark  23:13  

What else do we have to add into our toolkit this week?

Winston Benjamin  23:19  

So I'm gonna do a little bit of a cheat code. I am going to talk about a resource that was just shared, which is Resource Library. And the reason why I like that resource, it comes at my favorite price, which is Free-99. If anybody likes that, it's free of all charges. Go check it out, right? Like sometimes we always have to worry about the paywall. So sometimes getting a free access to information is a good thing. So check out that resource.

Rena Clark  23:50  

And beyond the News Literacy Project, I also know, especially with some of our younger learners as well, Common Sense Media has a lot of news and media literacy lessons available also Free-99.

Paul Beckermann  24:03  

And seriously, I used to be a journalism-Mass Comm-media teacher, and this is a treasure trove of content for teaching any of those things. I would have been in heaven if I had had this when I was doing that. I wish I had and Checkology, specifically. If you haven't seen it, check it out. That is top notch stuff. You pay big bucks for that, usually, and and you can get it for nothing here, and it teaches such great skills. Brittney, how about you? You get a chance to drop something in our toolkit too. You've dropped a lot of things already, but one more chance.

Brittney Smith  24:36  

Absollutely. To speak specifically about a lesson that we have that's really great about misinformation is actually called Misinformation, and it's a Checkology lesson. It is led by Dr. Claire Wardle, who is one of the leading thinkers, researchers in the misinformation sphere, and it comes with a full lesson guide for educators. It's fully transcribed, and we've got a Five Types of Misinformation poster to accompany that.

Paul Beckermann  25:11  

Fantastic and you know what? It's a great time for us to jump into our last segment, our one thing. 

Transition Music  25:18  

It's time for that one thing. One thing. One thing. Time for that one thing. That one thing. 

Paul Beckermann  25:32  

All right, Rena. We've heard lots of things today. What's your one thing?

Rena Clark  25:36  

I really love when Brittney talked about democracy needs a well-informed public, and all of our students are the public, and they're entering adulthood soon, so we can help them gain the skills needed so they can become well-informed.

Paul Beckermann  25:55  

Winston, what's your one thing?

Winston Benjamin  25:59  

Thinking about when I was a kid, and I think we had, I don't know if it was a class or if it was just something in language arts? Current events. It was a wild time. We used to read the newspaper. We used to talk about things that were going on in the world. I felt like I was able to have a conversation with adults because I was informed. So I think this reminds me of a valuable thing for me as a young person, which is being able to engage with things beyond my age, right? So that sounds like a good idea to me, and that's why I like to think about it.

Paul Beckermann  26:32  

Yeah, and I'm gonna go with a couple terms that Brittney dropped earlier: infodemic and information pollution. I think it just really re-emphasizes how important this media literacy is today, because we do have so much information out there, and it's so hard to know how it was created, or where it came from, or who's the source of it. So just to reiterate, once again, the importance of news literacy, media literacy, and the resources you can find on this site can really help with that. Brittney, what's your one thing? Final takeaway for our listeners today.

Brittney Smith  27:06  

Let's see. Well, I think I could just leave you with maybe a final word, if that's okay, rather than a takeaway. What I would just implore you to share with your students is that social media really, really, really makes misinformation an easy trap to fall into, and so just please encourage your students to diversify their media diet so that they avoid being in an echo chamber, or, you know, a kind of partisan news bubble. And you know, social media makes it easy to be in that place because it operates via an algorithm. So that's what I just encourage educators to share with their students.

Paul Beckermann  27:56  

Great advice.

Winston Benjamin  27:57  

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Brittney for your time and information on the News Literacy Project. I think it's going to be useful for teachers to support students engaging with the world that's going on in the next few months or years to come. So, we appreciate your supporting students engaging with the topics of the world. So, thank you for your time. Everyone take a second and check out the New Literacy Project. Hope to hear and listen to you soon. Talk to you soon. Have a good one.

Rena Clark  28:27  

Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin  28:30  

We invite you to visit us at AvidOpenAccess.org, where you can discover resources to support student agency, equity, and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann  28:44  

We'll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark  28:49  

And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin  28:52  

Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann  28:54  

You make a difference. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai